MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 766: COMRADE RATSKI

(Speed Comics 009, 1940)

Comrade Ratski's first appearance is fairly undistinguished as far as comic book spymasters go. Sent to subvert US war preparations, Ratski targets an airplane factory operating out of Hollywood, California (for some damn reason) and sensibly decides to do so under the guise of a war movie shoot next door, though at the point that you have all of the equipment required for such an attack in place, why bother going through with the "we're just filming a movie" deception? For the love of the game, of course.

Ratski's major distinguishing feature in this appearance is the fact that he is a pseudo-Soviet rather than the usual pseudo-Nazis who are the mainstay of the spy plot at this time. 

Shock Gibson of course does not like all of this factory bombing, and Comrade Ratski, like Baron von Kampf before him, ends up stranded in the middle of the ocean. And he's even more pessimistic about his chances at rescue!

Ratski returns in Speed Comics 010 and immediately starts to collect top scientists from top universities: Dr Bronson from Yarvard, Prof Capchek from Rinceton, and... somebody from Hale. His goal? Force them to invent at gunpoint so that he can use their creations to destroy America

Dr Bronson creates an earthquake machine which Ratski uses to attack democratic hub Western City. Ratski then makes the bizarre decision to send his men out to loot and plunder in the chaos, which is how Shock Gibson learns the location of Ratski's base after using the tried-and-true method of capturing a henchman and threatening to kill them unless they talk.

But even if Gibson hadn't done so, Ratski just can't stop signposting his location: after Prof Capchek develops an arthropod-enlarging serum Ratski just starts releasing giant beetles and flies from his front door in a way that I would call "highly visible."

Though Gibson does fight his way through various flies and spiders to make his way to Ratski's mountain fastness, the Comrade's ultimate undoing comes at the jaws of a freshly enlarged (and adorable!) cockroach with no sense of loyalty. He survives the encounter, but only with the help of a very ambitious mountain lion.

Shock Gibson rescues Capchek and some guy we've never seen before, possibly the Hale man. Bronson is unaccounted for.

Like Baron von Kampf before him, Comrade Ratski's final appearance is in Speed Comics 011 when the two team up in a version of the Soviet/Nazi manouvres in Poland and Eastern Europe, though I don't know quite enough about contemporary opinions on WWII to say if the fact that Ratski is clearly just exploiting von Kampf for cheap labour courtesy of his Zombie minions is further extrapolation of this relationship or just the writer favouring one villain over the other as the real heel.

For an epic team-up between two men sworn to conquer and/or destroy the United States of America, the stakes on the Ratski/von Kampf plan are pretty minimal - essentially it's just some run-of-the-mill piracy, only done by one-eyed green guys made of animal parts and flying a dirigible.

More than anything this issue is an exercise in making the zombies look cool while also making Shock Gibson look cool: the Zombies are parachuting! The Zombies are firing a machine gun! Shock Gibson is posing on top of a whale! Shock Gibson is protecting the whale!

Zombies in keen gas masks wielding cool gas guns! Zombies setting up a guillotine! Shock Gibson looking smug as hell while the guillotine blade smashes on his neck!

After the guillotine fails to do its job, things go very wrong for Comrade Ratski and Baron von Kampf, culminating in the destruction of their base, the foiling of their plans and they themselves becoming a meal for at least nine alligators. Who presumably represent the Allied Forces.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 552 UPDATE: BARON VON KAMPF (1940)

Making his triumphant return to comics, the dome-headed goblin of crime: Baron von Kampf!

Baron von Kampf's initial return in Speed Comics 004 involves him heading a sabotage ring for an unnamed European nation that is probably meant to be Nazi Germany, and it's possible that this is a relationship that were were meant to understand was behind his actions all along, but frankly it seems to me to be beneath him.

The Baron's schemes on behalf of his fascist overlords bring him to a secret submarine base, which is how he ends up stranded in the middle of the Atlantic after a final confrontation with Shock Gibson. Will he survive?

Indeed he will, and does! The Baron returns in Speed Comics 006, and I could not tell you if he's still working for the fascists or if he just likes a uniform. The Baron spends much of this issue employing the services of a bunch of crooks called the Palooka Gang to hijack trucks, and though he claims that this is in aid of a larger world conquest scheme I'd be tempted to call it a bit low-rent as far as super-villainy is concerned. Fortunately for his reputation, he still knows how to accessorize, and his headquarters (Mammoth Cave, Kentucky) and minions (the Zombies, making their long-awaited reappearance) really save the day.

How can I complain about truck hijacking when they're being done with such style?

The coolness of living in a cave, of course, is offset by the ever-present threat of being crushed to death in a cave-in, and doubly so when you're doing battle with a guy like Shock Gibson on the regular. Baron von Kampf manages to sneak out a side passage, but the Palooka Gang and this batch of Zombies are all toast, and the Harvey Comics version of Mammoth Cave is certainly the worse for wear.

Baron von Kampf's final appearance is in Speed Comics 011, in which he teams up with pseudo-Soviet spy and future entry Comrade Ratski, in what is probably a reference to the then-ongoing Soviet-Nazi nonaggression pact. What is certain about this alliance, however, is that Comrade Ratski is in charge - he seems to have taken von Kampf on as a partner mainly because he wants to use the Zombies as henchmen.

Speaking of the Zombies, this is their final appearance, and while that is disappointing there is a silver lining, as we get a final bit of lore about the top band of henchcreatures of the 1940s: they can speak, and they speak in backward sentences. Fun!

Like I said the scheme in this comic is basically all down to Comrade Ratski so we'll cover it in his entry, but suffice to say it does not go well once Shock Gibson gets wind. Ratski and von Kampf make their escape into the depths of the Florida Everglades and end up as alligator chow.